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Thursday, January 28, 2016

Preview: Frigid Festival 2016

It’s winter which means the Frigid Festival is upon us! This year for their 10th edition, Horse Trade Theater Group will play host to an assortment of producitons at the Kraine Theater and Under St. Marks. Theater in the Now is giving you a glimpse into the thirty productions of this year’s festival! Frigid Festival 2016 runs February 16th-March 6th. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit horsetrade.info and remember to use #frigidfestival2016 and #titn on Twitter and Facebook! And now, for a preview!

Top 5 Exciters

Chalk
Created & Performed by Alex Curtis

CHALK (a silent comedy) is a hilarious and unexpected one-man show guaranteed to delight audiences of all ages. Chalk invites audiences into a hand-drawn world where imagination is made real and anything can happen. Charlie Chaplin meets Harold and the Purple Crayon in this romantic romp sure to “Draw You In.”

In this farcical mash-up of "CSI: Miami" and "The Andy Griffith Show", we find a gruesome string of murders happening in Mayberry. It’s up to Andy and Barney to find out who the killer is from a list of familiar faces: Is it Aunt Bee? Floyd the Barber? Or someone else...?

In this historical romp, Emily Dickinson, New England's premiere paranormal investigator, is reunited with her mentor, Edgar Allan Poe. They venture to Brooklyn on the trail of a horrifying new adversary. Along the way they encounter ghosts, witches, and the mysterious Fox Sisters.

Help Me Out Here
Written & Performed by Michael Joel and Kaitlin Overton

As one assembles an IKEA chair, another determines the meaning of their existence. Devised from journals, emails, and drunken iPhone notes, Help me out here is written and performed by Michael Joel and Kaitlin Overton. Bring a screwdriver...and a Xanax.

Come join the March sisters as they spit rhymes, drop sick beats, and kick it old schoolhouse! Original debuted in at the Orlando Fringe in 2012; Lil’ Women: A Rap Musical combines the classic story "Little Women" with hip-hop music.

A Broad Abroad!
Written by Eric Kornfeld & D’yan Forest, Performed by D’yan Forest, Directed by Eric Kornfeld

Classy comedic "femme fatale" with an international flair takes you on her 80-year journey around the world through songs (French, Italian, English), humorous vignettes, with her piano & ukulele. Her unusual escapades and sexcapades will hold your attention since you won't know what to expect next.

Acute…Girl
Written & Performed by Julia Sun, Directed by Christine Renee Miller

How much bullsh*t can a girl put up with just to have nice things to wear? Come and listen to her stories told in a heartbreakingly hilarious way: between amateur modeling gigs and mail-in beauty pageant, what could possibly go wrong?

Florida is a messed up place with lots of crazy horrible things happening everyday. All is Fine in Sunny Florida! is a series of short plays (written by a Floridian) all about these TRUE STORIES….yes 98 percent of those play is completely true. Either from Florida Man twitter, real news stories or happened to the author.

Brigham Young University and UC Berkeley couldn’t be more different. They’re the crispy ends of the higher education banana, and Ben Abbott went to both. But while trading Book of Mormon classes for angry protest rallies, he may have stumbled upon a shocking conspiracy linking the two! (Spoiler: It’s aliens.)

CLENCHED
Written & Performed by David Mogolov, Directed by Steve Kleinedler

Struck by a mystery illness, David receives doctor's orders to relax: something he's incapable of doing. Desperate to conquer his debilitating tension, David dives into a spiraling monologue, a farce that audiences will find familiar, funny, and delightfully weird.

Conversations with Body Language is wordless solo sketch comedy. Started as a loving update to Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, Mike Spara combines silent film sensibility, modern music and absurdity into a mix-tape for your imagination. Mike is also a co-founder of The New Movement New Orleans.

NYC’s “decidedly wicked storyteller” (New York Times) returns to the FRIGID Festival with his latest tales to eviscerate the American Dream — exposing obsessions on guns, fear and our relentless pursuit of happiness. A resonant new voice of contemporary cabaret, brazenly bizarre and fearlessly foppish. Set expectation aside and see why critics the world over swoon for Dandy Darkly.

Don’t Move to Toronto
Written & Performed by Zoe Daniels, Dramaturgy by Mikaela Dyke

In 2012, Zoe Daniels lived a charmed life in Montreal. By 2014 she'd been dumped, evicted, fired, threatened, and bankrupted. Using the worst possible iTunes playlist and her years of experience as a stand-up comedian and storyteller, she presents the brutally hilarious tale of perfect happiness ruined by simply moving to Toronto.

Eighth Grade is the origin story of Nisse Greenberg's neurosis. It's funny in the way that losing your optimism is always a little funny. Using projections of found images and his eighth grade yearbook, Nisse shows us what it's like inside his mind: a place no one asked to go.

The Extraordinary Fall of the Four-Legged Woman
Written by Lily Ali-Oshatz, Directed by Madeline Wall

Step right up and witness a fantastical circus sideshow! In the dusty desert of Arizona, Myrtle Corbin, the Four-Legged Woman, meets her match. This experimental musical reveals the wonders of performing and navigates what it means to be "other."

The Gospel of Sherilyn Fenn
Written & Performed by Brad Lawrence, Directed by Cyndi Freeman

The show is the true story of how Brad Lawrence survived a childhood at the center of the Reagan Eighties, the rise of the moral majority and meth amphetamine, the terrors of sex and the nuclear bomb, and his guest role in a sibling’s suicide by escaping into pop culture.

The Murder at Ginger Creek: An Interactive Murder Mystery
Written & Directed by Michael Curtain and Ruthie Scarpino

Welcome to Ginger Creek, where curious characters and perplexing events are the norm. Join Hank O’ Hara and Sally Silver Gunz, as they run from the law, stumble over clues and suffer from amnesia. Their lives depend on you, as they attempt to solve a murder and prove their innocence.

From an Eden magical, menacing and alive with human feeling, we enter very the mind of Eve. Centuries later Adam is dead, Eve is pissed and good and evil are on the tongues of the tasters. Live musical accompaniment.

What happens when a boy wakes up to find out that puberty has turned his body into a mustache? Mark Pagán presents the only coming-of-age story involving mysterious stubble patches, etiquette tutorials, Teddy Pendergrass, treasure trails, Russian lasers, fake cancer scares, clandestine salon visits, and wax. Lots of wax.

Punk Grandpa is about one magical weekend Laura spent with her grandpa at 5 3/4 years old, portrayed through storytelling, dance, music and vintage family movies and photos. Grandpa was the free-est, most inappropriate person Laura ever knew and this show demonstrates how he set Laura free to be herself through his humor and unpredictable, wild ways. It'll put hair on your chest.

A woman raised by pigeons, an author famous only on NPR, and a devil worshipping cable company all know how to make it in the big city. Do you? Once you do, you may be too damaged to make it anywhere else...

Set Yet in Motion
Written by Alaina Hammond, Directed by Sarah M. Chichester

In Set Yet in Motion, the ancient Greeks contend with the Judeo-Christian God. Immanuel Kant and Friedrich Nietzsche address the intellectual and romantic tension between them. Also, there's onstage sex!* (*Verbal, metaphorical. Some would say that's the sexiest kind of sex.) A good time will be had by philosophers, artists, and geeks from all walks of life.

If falling in love could affect the fabric of reality, then a broken heart would shatter it into fragments. Merging theatre, experimental dance, animation, and a dark jazz score, Seven Fragments is a tale of unrequited love, lost memories, and high school.

HBO’s "Going Clear" meets Netflix’s "Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt" in this one-woman comedy that takes you along for the ride as main character, Diana, gets into and out of a cult. Based on a true story, Diana’s family does everything they can to rescue her as the cult holds firm control.

The award winning, critically acclaimed Rising Sun Performance Company returns to FRIGID with a tale of heartbreak, madness, and horror. Isabel’s world is forever altered over the course of two nights separated by decades in a desolate Maine cabin. If only she could hear three little words…

During the screening of the silent movie “FAUST” by Murnau (1926), the rock musician Supershock performs live music composed to interact with the images. The public experiences the atmosphere of silent cinema, but everything is repeated according to today's standards and the classic orchestra becomes rock music, who gives a fresh and modern voice. A show of contamination. A representation of modernity.

Thank You For Waiting
Written by Kasey Brown & Marc J. Franklin, Directed by Nicholas Foster

Kate and Eddie, two estranged friends, unexpectedly meet in a therapist’s waiting room after a year apart. As they confront a shared trauma, a delicate dance begins between who they were, and who they have become. Thank You For Waiting explores mental health, loss, and the dynamic nature of friendship.

Why So Much Shame?
Written & Performed by Nicole Ferraro, Directed by Sara Peters

Nicole was six when her dad died. But she kept trying to get his attention in hopes he'd come back. WHY SO MUCH SHAME? uses vivid storytelling to explore a child's unspoken grief, a woman's confrontation with the truth, and the powerful things that happen when we stop pretending.

WITH YOU! is a queer sports rom-com about a college rugby team's love for the game and each other, brought to the stage via one woman's body. The newest semi-autobiographical comedy from award-winning performer/playwright Una Aya Osato.